


Affirmation

by Delysia



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Team Iron Man, Established Relationship, F/M, Insecure Tony, Insecurity, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Post-Iron Man 2, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28994700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delysia/pseuds/Delysia
Summary: Set at the beginning of Civil War. Sometimes this all felt a little too good to be true. (Also known as- Tony has trust issues but, really, can you blame him?) New relationship insecurities abound.
Relationships: Natasha Romanov/Tony Stark
Comments: 10
Kudos: 94
Collections: Team Iron Man/Anti Steve





	Affirmation

His eyes narrowed. “So downstairs- that agreeing with me…. That was what exactly?”

“Don’t make me take it back,” she warned again.

“No, really. What was that?”

Nonplussed by Tony’s line of questioning, Natasha leaned casually against the wall of the training room he had messaged her to meet him in. “I think you are actually right on this one.”

“Okay what is this?” There was disbelief in his voice. Anxiety crawling in; refusal to be made a fool. He was an intelligent man, genius really, but Natasha often left him feeling stupid and slow. Her trajectory never precise; no equation could ever predict her actions. It left him at a severe disadvantage. “This isn’t how we normally do this.”

“How do we normally do this?” She was deadly calm, her face blank, a beautiful doll that blinked back at him.

“Well-” He started to pace, hands unable to stay firmly by his side. “Historically, you lie to me.” Fingers ticked off the only pattern he had managed to decipher. “Then you kick my ass- verbally or other, and, you know, help me save the world. Recently it’s been saving the world, and then… well, I am not sure what the kids are saying these days, so I am just going with mind-blowing sex.”

“Hook up,” Natasha offered.

“What?” 

“It’s what the kids call it- hooking up.”

“So we do  _ that.” _ He refused to repeat her chosen description. Nothing that Natasha did to him could fall under such common vernacular. It was practically a god damn religious experience. “But now you agree with me...I don’t know. Something feels off.”

“Off?” Natasha parroted back, her one eyebrow quirking up at his paranoia as the scientist continued to wear a path in the floor, back and forth, nine steps, heel, turn, back again. 

Tony stopped his trek at the challenging amusement playing on her face. Okay- he could just say it. Rip the bandaid off. It wasn’t like he was in the wrong here. She was the one changing course- not him. “Are you just agreeing with me so you can fight with Rogers?”

She actually had the gall to smirk at that, sexy as hell and too gorgeous for her own good. Shit- how was he supposed to do any of this when she constantly wrecked him without even trying?

“Jealous, Stark?”

Insanely. There was a closeness between the spy and soldier that clawed at him. She saw it; of course, she did. Natasha saw everything, saw through him, through his masks and suit of iron. Still- Tony had his pride. 

“Me? No! Why would I be?” And then it came tumbling out anyway because he never had learned how to shut the hell up. “Should I be? I mean, I know that you two ‘made out’- by the way, what does that even mean? Long kiss? Short? Open mouth? Tongue? Where were your hands? Where were  _ his  _ ?”

“We were undercover,” came her calm reply.

“Avoiding details.” His finger pointed accusingly in her direction. “I see what you are doing there, but let’s circle back to that. I seem to recall you being undercover at Stark Enterprise, and I don’t recall you kissing me.”

She hadn’t, but oh, there was a moment... A few of them actually, where he felt that undercurrent, that pull that they could be- more. And then he found out she was Fury’s plant, SHIELD spy, and, well, that was that. She had duped him, and if there was one thing Tony didn’t like, it was being made a chump. He would have been content to try to forget she existed, but the universe kept throwing him back in her orbit, helpless under her gravity.

“Do I really need to remind you what’s changed since then?”

No, not at all. If Nat started, she could make him forget everything (it was part of her attraction), but he had to know. Always had to know, never could leave a problem without a solution, even if it was one that would hurt. 

“So this Rogers kiss- how hot was it? Like kissing your grandpa or hot like those photos from Japan. Those were made just for me, right? Well, they were right?” He looked at her sharply for confirmation, and all she gave him was a slight shrug, but he knew. Natalie Rushman had been crafted for him. “That’s what I thought. Jarvis and I managed to hide away a few things during your great info dump. Thanks again for not giving me any heads up on that.”

“I knew you would be up for the challenge.”

Fuck. And it was shit like this that messed him up. How she just could lob open belief at him, like he was in any way worthy of it.

“That’s a compliment! See, you are throwing this whole thing off for me. You being nice… kinda makes a man on edge.”

She had shifted closer, head tilted. “I make you nervous?”

“Don’t sit there and act like you don’t already know that, probably love it- keeping me on my toes.”

“I do, actually.”

That timber of her voice, the slight sway forward, that soft smile. Shit, how was he going to get this out if she kept looking like that? “I am just saying Banner, Rogers, I’m assuming Clint’s at least tried…” He paused at her confirmation in the form of an eye roll. Well, Tony had always wondered how Birdboy had worked that closely with her without it ever being more. Apparently, the hawk wasn’t immune to her charms either. “So is this just a thing? Line us up and knock us down because if so, I need to make sure to have a little man to android talk with Vision before you take a crack at him.”

“Tony-.”

It was probably hitting below the belt; actually, Tony knew it was, but he couldn’t help it. “I know Vision knows, well, everything, but I’m just saying you defy logic.”

“Tony-”

“Don’t want him to blow a mainframe or something.”

“Tony.”

“Yeah?”

He looked up to find her suddenly in front of him, green eyes staring into his. God- what had he gotten himself into? She was going to kill him when she left, leave him smashed into tiny pieces when he eventually fucked up like he always did if he hadn’t already.

And then, because she always seemed to know what to do, she brought a hand up to cup his cheek gently before demanding, “shut up” and drawing him in. Her lips molding to his, her hand sliding to his hair, keeping him so very close. Tony’s breath catching for just a nanosecond as his tongue slid against hers, desperately battling against the rising panic that he could lose her. And then it was softer, and she was pressing one last chaste peck against his lips as she pulled back, hands finding purchase on his shoulders.

“I agree with you because I actually agree with you.”

Stark struggled not to look at her with skepticism, but it was a battle he lost.

“We have to set the example,” she continued. “Clearly we are not the only ones out there, so we have to do this.”

“So you actually agree with me?” 

“Yes.” The word dumbass seemed to linger unspoken in the air.

She agreed with him? Her? After the Red Room and then SHIELD pulling her strings, she still thought he was right. She understood what he was trying to do here. It washed over him like a sudden shower. “Why?”

Natasha pulled back, frustration evident, “I just told you!”

He grabbed at one of her hands and pulled her body back to his. “No. Not why do you agree with me; why are you here with me?”

Her hands ran up his chest, sweeping outward across the span of his shoulders. “Tell me you love me,” she demanded.

“I love you.” The words were automatic.

Nat held his gaze, the slightest incline of the corners of her mouth. “Liar.”

_ Was he? Maybe, probably... _ This was all still so new, but Tony could feel it; that way, he could so quickly tumble into her, head over heels, hopeless, helpless. Natasha was always alluring, but this was something deeper- they could be  _ more,  _ and that was terrifying. His heart was still being stitched back together.

His hands found her hips and anchored her there, close. “No, what is it really? It’s the fully stocked freezer full of Ben and Jerry’s, isn’t it? Or the upgrade I made to your-”

Her hand came up and clamped over his mouth, flustered, he had ruffled those usually impeccable Romanoff feathers. “Because you cared enough to come and find me. After…,” she didn’t say SHIELD, she didn’t have to. “When I went underground, it was you who found me and reminded me that I couldn’t just abandon the world.”

Tony had; it had taken months. He had stupidly taken Rogers’ advice to give her time, and it wasn’t like Tony didn’t have his hands full anyway, first cleaning up the information dump and then that mess with Killian. By the time his life had calmed down enough, that trickle of worry had become a tsunami. He wanted to know where the team was, and he wanted them safe, all of them, but Natasha had effectively disappeared.

It took weeks of all-nighters and too much coffee. Hacking into any and all cameras before Stark was able to even get a lead on her. Actually, getting to see Nat face to face was a combination of both good luck\bad luck. He happened to be in the same time zone, and she happened to be hurt, pinned down in a gunfight caught on camera. If she had appreciated his hasty help, she sure didn’t show it at the time, stitching herself up (not even allowing him to pass her supplies), but he had talked, and talked, and talked. And eventually, she agreed to come back to the tower- ‘anything to shut you up.’

Where she promptly fell into his project to sundown the Hulk. Tony felt he should have seen that one coming. “Yeah, and then you made goo goo eyes at my best friend,” he pouted but kept her tight against him.

“I do believe you were taken.”

_ Fuck. _ Tony couldn’t stop the sharp inhale. Had she even back then felt this, this potential something brewing between them? 

She shrugged, hands coming up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. “Also Bruce looked at me like I was something good or noble. Like I needed protection instead of being the thing people need protection from.”

Stark got that; he really did. “Pepper was the same. She wanted me to be this great guy, but I’m not. I’m messy and screwed up, and I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy with a suit.” And he wasn’t ready to give them up, to give up who he was when he wore them.

“But you knew that,” he continued. “Way back when, you knew that. Fury showed me, ‘Tony Stark, not recommended.’ So why are you here?”  _ With me  _ went unsaid.

“I said what I needed to get you to be who I knew you could be.”

He resisted the urge to close his eyes at that admission. So much of who he was now had been shaped by that report, for better and worse. “And who is that exactly? Iron man? Avenger on call?”

“The guy that would risk his life to save New York.”

“And you knew that by saying Iron Man yes and not me that I would turn into that guy?”

“I was hoping you would,” she replied with honesty.

“But I’m still all screwed up,” he protested.

“You think I don’t know that, Stark?” And damn, there was that look he loved- like he was an idiot, but  _ her  _ idiot.

Still, he couldn’t stop questioning, it was in his nature, and Natasha was the most complex puzzle of a person he had ever come across. “So then why are you here?”

“Why are you?”

Tony thought about trying to put into words all of the things he admired in her, the way her determination moved him, how even back when she was undercover, he knew the potential of them together could shake the world... But then again, she hated when he wouldn’t shut up. She wouldn’t believe him anyway- not yet, but he could convince her. Just give him time. 

So instead, he quipped, “I would say it’s because I have a thing for redheads if I wasn’t sure you would kill me.”

Her reply was a single raised eyebrow. Yeah, there was no getting off that easy, but she wasn’t ready for the truth just yet, or not all of it at least… “Well I mean it’s obvious, isn’t it? Because you know I’m messy and screwed up, and you’re still here. I don’t know why but you are.” 

“Do you have to question everything, Stark?”

Yes, but right now, with her in his arms, maybe it could wait. He never met a puzzle he couldn’t solve given enough time.

“Well, right now, I’m questioning how good Cap’s hearing is.” And he pressed deliciously against her. 

Her warning was stern, “Stark, don’t even think about it,” even as she arched closer, curves against his firm body.

“Just saying you know his room is right beneath us,” Tony managed between soft kisses up the column of her neck.

“I know the layout,” was her harsh whispered reply as his lips latched on to a particularly sensitive spot behind her ear.

“Yeah,” Tony nodded, suddenly gleeful with his latest idea, whispering it into the shell of her ear. “So what I’m wondering is what he is going to think if he hears you scream…”

Her breath caught, but she stayed defiant. “I don’t scream.”

History had shown that was sadly true. Still... Stark loved a good challenge. “No? Maybe not, but I bet I can make you moan loud enough to make Grandpa hear.”

“Tony…” it came out as half protest, half moan as he pressed Nat into him.

Yeah, he was up for it- all of it, figuring out what the hell she saw in him, making her see what he saw in her, and as for Rogers… Well, they invented noise-canceling headphones for a reason.

“Yeah, that’s a good start…”

It really was.

  
  
  


  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So first time playing in the IronWidow sandbox and I am super nervous. First writing I have shared publicly in a good long time so please- any feedback, good or bad, would mean the world to me. Playing with the idea of making this a series so eager to hear what you think.


End file.
